The Pull Apart Bread is a bread made with pieces of sweet leavened dough, which are baked in a cake pan at high heat after first being individually coated with melted butter, cinnamon, sugar, and chopped pecans, served in the United States for breakfast: Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread.
The final result comes out as a “loaf,” but to eat it, you pull out one ball at a time (translated as “bread to pull apart”).
It is also known as “monkey bread” because it is a finger food, eaten piece by piece with hands, like a monkey would.
In reality, it is a Hungarian dessert: arany galuska (“golden dumpling”), a recipe dating back to 1880: Hungarian immigrants brought this dish with them when they immigrated to America and began to introduce it into the country’s food scene through Hungarian Jewish bakeries from the mid-20th century.
As it became more popular in America, arany galuska was confused with “monkey bread” where the dough balls are not dipped in cinnamon and sugar, but only in butter.
While the sweet version has European roots, savory versions are a typically Italian-American evolution.
The use of garlic butter was born in the United States as a substitute for olive oil (which was more expensive at the beginning of the 1900s) to recreate the flavor of Italian bruschetta, giving rise to the whole line of “Garlic Breads.”
- Difficulty: Easy
- Rest time: 4 Hours
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 12 people
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: American
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 packet baking powder
- 0.85 cup milk
- 3 tbsp water
- 13 tbsp butter
- 1 egg
- 1.5 oz pecans
- 2 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 Bundt pan Bundt pan 9.5/10 inches
Steps
Mix 2.5 cups of flour with 0.2 cups of sugar, the packet of baking powder, and a pinch of salt.
Heat the milk with the water and melt, but not completely, 6 tbsp of butter.
Mix into the flour mixture.
Add the egg, the remaining 1.5 cups of flour, and work for about 6/8 minutes until forming a ball to let rise for about 10 minutes.
Divide into 36 pieces and roll each as if it were a ball.
Mix the cinnamon with 0.8 cups of sugar and the pecans.
Melt the rest of the butter.
Dip each ball first in the butter and then in the cinnamon, sugar, and pecan mix, then place each piece in a greased bundt pan and spread any leftover melted butter on top.
Let rise until doubled, then bake in the oven at 350°F for 30 minutes and serve warm.
In the ninth episode of the event series “Dexter New Blood”, Pull apart bread is served during the Christmas lunch and colloquially called “monkey bread.”
